House Burns after Being Hit by SUV, Off-Duty Paramedic Injured

This photo from Tri-Village Volunteer Fire Company shows a house on State Route 145 in Preston Hollow engulfed in flames after being hit by an SUV.

By Andrea Macko/Porcupine Soup

PRESTON HOLLOW―Three people, including an off-duty Greene County paramedic, were hospitalized early Sunday morning after an SUV hit a house and ignited it on fire.

It happened around 1:05 a.m. at 3180 State Route 145 in the Rensselaerville hamlet of Preston Hollow.

Tri-Village Volunteer Fire Company was initially dispatched to a report of a traffic accident with a vehicle into a house and the vehicle on fire. Chief Dennis Wood arrived within four minutes to find a working structure fire which brought automatic mutual aid from Medusa and Rensselaerville fire companies. Firefighters from Broome were also called in with a tanker.

And while the fire was under control by 1:30 a.m., “due to the investigation and severe damage to the home, overhaul took several hours,” Tri-Village Volunteer Fire Company reported, noting that they remained on scene until around 5:30 a.m.

“There were two occupants in the home at the time of the crash that had to break out a bathroom window to escape the intense fire because the crash had blocked their only means of egress,” the fire company stated.

Those two people were uninjured, but the house was devastated.

An off-duty Greene County Paramedic and his wife, who happened to be driving by at the time of the accident, stopped to help two people out of the burning vehicle and to assist the two occupants from the home. The paramedic, who was not publicly identified, received minor burns to his hands and suffered smoke inhalation and was transported to Albany Medical Center, Tri-Village Volunteer Fire Company stated.

“We can confirm that our provider is well and recovering,” Greene County Paramedics reported.

“First responders are always ‘on duty,’ and we can’t commend this provider and his wife enough for stopping to help, and putting their own lives on the line so that others may live,” the agency added.

The two people in the vehicle were taken by ambulance to Albany Medical Center for treatment. Their names and conditions were not reported as of Sunday night.

The accident is under investigation by the Albany County Sheriff's Office.